


I won't go anywhere

by bunnysworld



Series: Triskelions and dragons [8]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Reincarnation, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-18
Updated: 2014-09-18
Packaged: 2018-02-17 20:42:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2322521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunnysworld/pseuds/bunnysworld
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur finally reads the legend</p>
            </blockquote>





	I won't go anywhere

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks again, issy, for the beta!
> 
> Written for Camelot_Drabble's prompt 'approval'

Arthur pulled back, his face in a deep frown. 

“What is it?” Merlin asked softly as he stepped behind the chair in which Arthur had been reading for a while now.

“You’ve got to be kidding! This…this is NOT what happened!” Arthur looked up at Merlin, who put a soft kiss on his lips.

“Probably not exactly, but…”

“I did not get married to a woman! Who cheated on me with a good friend! And…ew, we have a threesome!” Arthur shuddered.

Trying to hide a smirk, Merlin pulled Arthur close and put another kiss on his hair. “Is it the threesome or the fact that a woman was involved that doesn’t meet with your approval?”

Arthur got up and started to pace. “And that part…,” he glared at Merlin, “…a child? With my SISTER????????”

“Back then it wasn’t…”

“Don’t tell me it was something normal to have children with your siblings! And…come on, Mordred is my son? Yuck!”

When Merlin just looked at him, Arthur stopped pacing. “What else? What is there that I didn’t read yet?”

“I’d rather you read it.”

“Did I marry a troll? A dragon? Have kids with them?” Arthur shuddered again. “Or a threesome with my own son?”

“No, Arthur, none of that happened.” 

“Yeah, like none of this,” he pointed at the book, “did happen! I didn’t do any of these things!”

“It was a different time. It wasn’t that unusual that nobles fathered children with their siblings. They sometimes didn’t even know each other. And when magic was involved…”

“So magic is evil!” 

Shaking his head, Merlin just stood there for a moment. “No, Arthur. Magic is not evil. Magic just is. It’s people who use it for different purposes.”

“Magic does not exist!” Arthur crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked challengingly at Merlin. 

After a moment, Merlin nodded once, pressed the palms of his hands together and closed his eyes. 

Arthur’s arms fell to his sides and his jaw slowly dropped as Merlin whispered something he didn’t understand. But when he opened his eyes again, they glowed golden and when he opened his hands, a beautiful blue butterfly appeared. 

“How…how did you do that? Did you have the butterfly along all the time? Up your sleeve?”

“You can’t put butterflies in your sleeve, Arthur.”

Startling slightly as the butterfly made a few rounds in his place and then disappeared as if it never existed, Arthur didn’t know what to say. His heart was beating wildly. So…that was magic? Merlin really knew how to use magic? Magic DID exist? And if magic existed…did that mean that everything else was true, too? He felt rather weak and sat down hard on his couch.

“Arthur…I know this is difficult to accept. I have spent centuries watching as people lost their beliefs in magic. You’re the first one I’ve showed in ages.”

Taking a deep breath that he let out in a just as deep sigh, Arthur was totally lost. “And that means that…that you really are so old…”

“In numbers, yes. But I stopped aging when you were gone.” Merlin sat down next to Arthur.

Arthur slid over and put his head on Merlin’s shoulder. “My brain is going to explode any minute now. I fucked my sister. Mordred is my son. I don’t think I want to be this king of legends.”

Merlin wrapped his arms around him. “We can’t have that. Think of all the mess an exploded brain would make…”

Huffing out a chuckle, Arthur leaned into Merlin. If all he had read about was true and did really happen, and it was him that all of this happened to, and if Merlin was really magic and the butterfly hadn’t been a weird trick, he should be running for the hills, shouldn’t he? He shouldn’t feel so warm and safe with Merlin. 

“Are you okay?” Merlin whispered.

“Will all of this happen again? I mean…if it is real and wasn’t just a legend…and I’m really King Arthur…will we have to go through all of this again?”

Merlin shook his head. “I don’t think so. There are many things I have seen and learned since then. It seems as if this life is just for us. To do all the things we didn’t get to do that first time.”

“Like…being together?”

“It seems so.”

Arthur tilted his head so he could look at Merlin. He was still confused but Merlin’s presence soothed him. “If I don’t have to sleep with my sister and Gwen and Lance and nobody kills me – because that’s what’s going to happen at the end of this book, right? – I think I can do it. As long as you are here.”

“I won’t go anywhere, Arthur.”

Merlin looked so sincere and hopeful that Arthur shoved all thoughts of ancient kingdoms and treason out of his mind and kissed him.


End file.
